RE: climate action on campuses
Hi Stacy, It doesnt deal only with climate change, but Sierra Youth Coalition has a national (Canadian) sustainable campuses project. The website is http://syc-cjs.org/sustainable/Measuring+Sustainabilitybl There are links from there to a number of Canadian universities sustainability projects. Since I am new to the list, Ill also take the opportunity to introduce myself: I am an assistant professor in the political science department at Acadia University, in Nova Scotia, Canada. My main interests are in the areas of environmental political theory, the politics and political economy of water (hydropolitics, mentioned in another thread a few days ago), and the ideology of consumerism. Glad to be part of the list. Cheers, Andrew Andrew Biro Canada Research Chair in Political Ecology Dept. of Political Science Acadia University Wolfville, NS B4P 2R6 (902)585-1925 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Denaturalizing Ecological Politics (University of Toronto Press, 2005) http://www.utppublishing.com/pubstore/merchant.ihtml?pid=8293lastcatid=20step=4 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of VanDeveer, Stacy Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 11:36 AM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Cc: Levine-Leung, Dovev; Dovev Levine Subject: climate action on campuses I have a grad student working on categorizing and assessing climate change policies and actions on campuses. That is, we are trying to find out what campuses are actually doing Any resources or ideas are welcome. --Stacy Stacy D. VanDeveer 2003-2006 Ronald H. O'Neal Assoc. Professor University of New Hampshire Dept. of Political Science Horton SSC Durham, NH 03824 USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel: fax: mobile: (+1) 603-862-0167 (+1) 603-862-0178 (+1) 781-799-1782 Add me to your address book... Want a signature like this?
Translation of non-English documents
Hi all -- a student of mine sent me this question this morning: I'm doing a project for a spanish translation class that i am inand I was wondering how frequently youare faced with a lack of translated documents, or quality translated documents, (in any language) while doing research. Do you know if this is a major problem in the study of global environmental politics? Any thoughts? Thanks, Simon Simon Nicholson Ph.D. Candidate School of International Service American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington DC 20016
Re: Translation of non-English documents
A couple thoughts. First, most researchers, of course, speak and read English as their second language, and are well used to having to cope with language issues. Second, my experience (as a native English speaker) is that a little knowledge of a few other languages can go a long way, if you simply have the courage to try, and keep the right friends. Knowing German and French means that I can get the gist of what is written in all the Germanic languages (German, Dutch, Danish, etc.) and the romance languages, and can then ask a friend who is a native speaker of one of those languages to help me out, if I find something interesting. It's a lifelong project. I am still hopeless with anything Slavic, or non-European, and want to learn Arabic and Russian by the time I am 50, and then move on to Chinese by the time I retire. Tony Simon [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thursday, April 13, 2006 at 10:10 AM -0500 wrote: “I'm doing a project for a spanish translation class that i am in and I was wondering how frequently you are faced with a lack of translated documents, or quality translated documents, (in any language) while doing research. Do you know if this is a major problem in the study of global environmental politics? I'm with Ron -- where I've run into the problem most (and have had to simply eliminate some cases from a database) is regional treaties in languages like Czech that I can't speak. I'm sure there are articles in other languages that would be useful if I could access them in translation, but if I don't know the languages I may not even be aware that they exist, so I don't know what I'm missing. Beth
Re: Translation of non-English documents
I would answer the question a different way. I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and have never done a research project in global environmental politics where I did NOT use both languages. While formal multilateral government documents are routinely translated, regional documents often are not, as previous posters have said. Documents by non-state actors are frequently not translated; nor are national government documents that may be important sources for understanding why countries took the positions they did in the multi-lateral treaties. And, of course, for actually observing negotiations, you can pick up a lot more about what's going on if you speak languages other than English. What is said and written in English (especially English only) is often a biased subset of what is part of global environmental politics. On the question of the quality of translation, I have heard an amusing story about negotiations in preparation for the Beijing conference on women. Delegates were having the usual sticky discussion about the word gender, which the Vatican and others reject, since they say it implies there may be more categories than male and female. They prefer the two-category word sex. In the middle of negotiations, the Spanish language negotiators came in to find that in their translation only, the word genero had been replaced with the word sex... Another interesting translation note (sorry, I really am fascinated by this issue): when I started studying South America in 1989, Spanish-speakers claimed they simply couldn't understand Portuguese while Brazilians had some ability to understand Spanish. But a decade later when I started studying the Mercosur free trade area, it turned out that communication was possible after all, if there was enough reason to do it. At Mercosur meetings, the Brazilians talk Portuguese and the Spanish-speakers talk Spanish, the documents are in whatever the language of the rotating presidency, and translation is a non-issue. Kathy Beth DeSombre wrote: Simon [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thursday, April 13, 2006 at 10:10 AM -0500 wrote: “I'm doing a project for a spanish translation class that i am in and I was wondering how frequently you are faced with a lack of translated documents, or quality translated documents, (in any language) while doing research. Do you know if this is a major problem in the study of global environmental politics? I'm with Ron -- where I've run into the problem most (and have had to simply eliminate some cases from a database) is regional treaties in languages like Czech that I can't speak. I'm sure there are articles in other languages that would be useful if I could access them in translation, but if I don't know the languages I may not even be aware that they exist, so I don't know what I'm missing. Beth
RE: Translation of non-English documents
I am absolutely with Kathryn and Anthony on this. I would add a couple of observations: one, that if a person has not experienced learning a second or third language, he or she is far less sensitive to and imaginative about how things might be misconstrued in the translation process, and may also be a less careful listener to those who are speaking English but who are not native speakers. In general, learning languages makes one sensitive to linguistic nuance, and, particularly in diplomacy, this is a very important thing. Translations are virtually never precise equivalences to the original documents. I am working on a large collaborative international project now where people are bringing a variety of first languages (English, French, Slovak, Latvian, German, etc) but the official language is English. It is clear that the momentum of English dominance of the process will affect the nuances of the final report. Though it may not be terribly relevant to this discussion, I also just want to make the point that learning a language is one of those fundamental ways of opening up mental processes and cultural understanding. My far from perfect skills in Spanish and Portuguese and reading skills in some others are among those most treasured accomplishments of having lived a long life, because of the feeling that my sense of the world is larger and richer as a result. Angus Wright -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Kathryn.Hochstetler Sent: Thu 4/13/2006 9:11 AM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Cc: 'Kirsten Luxbacher' Subject: Re: Translation of non-English documents I would answer the question a different way. I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and have never done a research project in global environmental politics where I did NOT use both languages. While formal multilateral government documents are routinely translated, regional documents often are not, as previous posters have said. Documents by non-state actors are frequently not translated; nor are national government documents that may be important sources for understanding why countries took the positions they did in the multi-lateral treaties. And, of course, for actually observing negotiations, you can pick up a lot more about what's going on if you speak languages other than English. What is said and written in English (especially English only) is often a biased subset of what is part of global environmental politics. On the question of the quality of translation, I have heard an amusing story about negotiations in preparation for the Beijing conference on women. Delegates were having the usual sticky discussion about the word gender, which the Vatican and others reject, since they say it implies there may be more categories than male and female. They prefer the two-category word sex. In the middle of negotiations, the Spanish language negotiators came in to find that in their translation only, the word genero had been replaced with the word sex... Another interesting translation note (sorry, I really am fascinated by this issue): when I started studying South America in 1989, Spanish-speakers claimed they simply couldn't understand Portuguese while Brazilians had some ability to understand Spanish. But a decade later when I started studying the Mercosur free trade area, it turned out that communication was possible after all, if there was enough reason to do it. At Mercosur meetings, the Brazilians talk Portuguese and the Spanish-speakers talk Spanish, the documents are in whatever the language of the rotating presidency, and translation is a non-issue. Kathy Beth DeSombre wrote: Simon [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thursday, April 13, 2006 at 10:10 AM -0500 wrote: I'm doing a project for a spanish translation class that i am in and I was wondering how frequently you are faced with a lack of translated documents, or quality translated documents, (in any language) while doing research. Do you know if this is a major problem in the study of global environmental politics? I'm with Ron -- where I've run into the problem most (and have had to simply eliminate some cases from a database) is regional treaties in languages like Czech that I can't speak. I'm sure there are articles in other languages that would be useful if I could access them in translation, but if I don't know the languages I may not even be aware that they exist, so I don't know what I'm missing. Beth
Re: Translation of non-English documents
Hi, Simon Kristen, I definitely second everyone else's comments. Regarding official documentation of negotiations particularly, there's one other thing - the quality of translations may be context specific. Most of the translators and interpretors I've met work for the FAO and other large multilateral organizations. They tend to be consummate professionals and often specialize in particular issues in order to build the nuanced technical vocabulary that is necessary for accurate translation. That said, these individuals are usually well compensated for their efforts, so smaller or less well funded bodies may not be able to afford such high quality services. Just as a point of interest, multilingual delegates themselves are often rigorous in their reading of official documents, and they don't hesitate to point out errors in translations. Thus, there may be another source of differentiation between smaller and larger treaties or management bodies, the volume of scrutiny that the documents receive. livwell, dgwebster Simon wrote: Hi all -- a student of mine sent me this question this morning: I'm doing a project for a spanish translation class that i am inand I was wondering how frequently youare faced with a lack of translated documents, or quality translated documents, (in any language) while doing research. Do you know if this is a major problem in the study of global environmental politics?" Any thoughts? Thanks, Simon Simon Nicholson Ph.D. Candidate School of International Service American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington DC 20016
